of future events; or, by the
influence of demons, when the imagination is moved regarding the
future known to the demons, as explained above (Q. 57, A. 3). The
soul is naturally more inclined to receive these impressions of
spiritual causes when it is withdrawn from the senses, as it is then
nearer to the spiritual world, and freer from external distractions.
The same may also come from superior corporeal causes. For it is
clear that superior bodies influence inferior bodies. Hence, in
consequence of the sensitive faculties being acts of corporeal
organs, the influence of the heavenly bodies causes the imagination
to be affected, and so, as the heavenly bodies cause many future
events, the imagination receives certain images of some such events.
These images are perceived more at night and while we sleep than in
the daytime and while we are awake, because, as stated in _De Somn.
et Vigil._ ii [*De Divinat. per somn. ii], "impressions made by day
are evanescent. The night air is calmer, when silence reigns, hence
bodily impressions are made in sleep, when slight internal movements
are felt more than in wakefulness, and such movements produce in the
imagination images from which the future may be foreseen."

Reply Obj. 3: Brute animals have no power above the imagination
wherewith to regulate it, as man has his reason, and therefore their
imagination follows entirely the influence of the heavenly bodies.
Thus from such animals' movements some future things, such as rain
and the like, may be known rather than from human movements directed
by reason. Hence the Philosopher says (De Somn. et Vig.), that "some
who are most imprudent are most far-seeing; for their intelligence
is not burdened with cares, but is as it were barren and bare of all
anxiety moving at the caprice of whatever is brought to bear on it."
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QUESTION 87

HOW THE INTELLECTUAL SOUL KNOWS ITSELF AND ALL WITHIN ITSELF
(In Four Articles)

We have now to consider how the intellectual soul knows itself and
all within itself. Under this head there are four points of inquiry:

(1) Whether the soul knows itself by its own essence?

(2) Whether it knows its own habits?

(3) How does the intellect know its own act?

(4) How does it know the act of the will?
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FIRST ARTICLE [I, Q. 87, Art. 1]

Whether the Intellectual Soul Knows Itself by Its Essence?

Objection 1: It would seem that the intellectual soul kn